Are Democrats done in the South? Arkansas governor's race a test

If any Democrat can win in this political climate, it’s Mike Ross, strategists said. | AP Photos

By REBECCA ELLIOTT | 8/28/13 5:05 AM EDT

Twenty years ago, the notion of a Republican-controlled Arkansas was unthinkable. But as the state readies for 2014’s hotly contested governor’s race, Republicans have a shot at cementing their newfound dominance in the longtime southern Democratic stronghold.

With the campaign, Democrats are being forced to confront a tough question: Can they still win in the South?

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Governors' offices up for grabs in 2014

The answer will come down to whether former Rep. Mike Ross, the Democratic establishment’s gubernatorial candidate of choice, will be able to carve out his own brand as an Arkansas Democrat, or whether disaffection with the national party will be too strong for him to beat out former Rep. Asa Hutchinson, the Republican front-runner, and stem the tide of growing conservatism.

The state that twice elected Bill Clinton to the presidency now has an all-Republican House delegation, the first in well over a century, and Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor is neck and neck in the polls in a marquee Senate race against Republican Rep. Tom Cotton.

January 2013 marked the first time Republicans controlled the state Legislature since 1874. If Ross loses next year, Republicans could yet again make history — they have not held both the governorship and the Legislature since that same year.

Bucking the trend is term-limited Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, who enjoys one of the highest job approval ratings of Democratic governors in the country. He also swept every county in the state in his 2010 reelection, even as voters ousted incumbent Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

However, the state’s political landscape now suggests that Beebe is the exception, not the rule.

“It’s not like it used to be,” former Democratic Sen. Dale Bumpers said of Arkansas. “Republicans control politics in the state.”

Set against the rest of the South, the strength of the Republican Party in Arkansas would seem unremarkable. Yet Arkansas was always the place where Democrats — Clinton, Bumpers and Beebe chief among them — could thrive in the South.

Politicians and strategists attributed Arkansas’s unique identity to its hefty independent voter base and small size, which has facilitated the kind of retail politics that allows Democrats to create a statewide persona that stands apart from the national party.

“Arkansas has certainly a unique brand of populism, a deeper Democratic culture historically than some of the other Southern states, and so the transition to the Republican Party has been slower,” Hutchinson said.

“I do think in smaller states, rural states, it becomes more of a personal connection that the voter has with the candidates, more so than what they see or hear on TV,” added Arkansas Democratic strategist Robert McLarty.

Hutchinson, 62, served two terms in Congress and then was tapped by President George W. Bush in 2001 to head the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He previously served as chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. This will be his fourth bid for statewide office; he lost elections for senator in 1986, Arkansas attorney general in 1990 and governor in 2006.

Arkansas does not require voters to register party affiliation — and the vast majority of voters do not do so — but polls show the state is roughly evenly divided between Democrats, Republicans and independents. However, the percentage of very likely independent voters who identify as leaning Republican has shot up 15 percentage points in the last decade to 46 percent, according to a 2012 University of Arkansas poll.

Strategists attributed the change to a strong dislike for Obama and his policies.

Obama has never been popular in Arkansas, and his approval rating there has, if anything, only gotten worse. According to an internal GOP poll out two weeks ago, 59 percent of likely voters in Arkansas view Obama unfavorably.

If any Democrat can win in this political climate, it’s Ross, strategists said.